


Cabeswater Ships It, Too

by e_cat



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam is freaking out, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cabeswater is messing with their lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2761466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_cat/pseuds/e_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam is trying very hard to not look at Ronan. Of course, it doesn't work very well.</p><p>Characters belong to Maggie Stiefvater, who is far better at writing about them than me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cabeswater Ships It, Too

Adam couldn’t stop looking at Ronan. It was all quick, darting glances that left him both emotionally overfilled, and strangely unsatisfied. It was emotions of desire and confusion and _thrill._ It was driving Adam crazy.

Surely Adam could control himself, couldn’t he? He could make it through the next minute without looking at Ronan – no, no he couldn’t. He was looking at Ronan right now. He needed to look away before anyone, especially Ronan, noticed.

The rest of this vaguely-Glendower-related outing – really, it was just Gansey, Ronan, and Adam returning to ideas already proven illogical over pizza while Blue served them iced tea and reminders of their lack of productivity – Adam keep his gaze firmly on the table, except for the few occasions that Gansey’s tone required that he look at his face, and the many occasions that Adam’s emotions required that he look at Ronan’s.

Adam slid into the back of the Pig quietly as they left, and he was more than a little surprised when Ronan threw himself loudly into the back seat as well. He almost stared in shock long enough for another emotion to make it onto his face. Ronan shrugged and gestured to Blue, outside of the car and still discussing something at length with Gansey. It was clear that they were both planning on getting into the car, but also that they weren’t going to do so any time soon.

When Adam looked back at Ronan, he was already settled quite comfortably, leaning against the window in what Adam expected was a perfect position to watch Adam without Adam noticing. Sure, it _looked_ like Ronan was staring at the nothingness just outside the windshield, but he could easily be watching Adam out of the corner of his eyes. It was times like this that Adam wondered how long Ronan had been watching him before he noticed – Ronan was clearly very practiced at watching without being noticed. The only reason that Adam had noticed now was that he was watching Ronan in return. Speaking of which –

“Quit staring at me,” Ronan said, barely moving his lips. Ah, so he _was_ watching Adam. Adam wished he could figure out how to watch Ronan without being seen. But, then again, he wasn’t sure he had as much control over his impulses as Ronan did. As much as Ronan attempted to look reckless, he never did anything without a good reason. The closest he got to reckless, Adam allowed himself to fancy, was fantasizing about Adam out of the corner of his eyes.

Adam, embarrassed, looked away. His gaze fell to his lap, where his fingers fidgeted against each other. Of their own accord, his eyes slid to glance at Ronan; Adam forced them back to his hands. His eyes obeyed for a few seconds before repeating the routine. After the third or fourth time through this troubled rendition, Ronan sighed and turned to face Adam head-on. “What’s your fucking question, Parrish?” he asked. There was less irritation in his voice than there would have been if anyone else was around.

Adam slowly lifted his head to look at Ronan. He didn’t have a question. Or maybe that wasn’t quite true: Adam had a lot of questions, but he couldn’t _say_ any of them. So he just locked eyes with Ronan and tried not to give anything away.

The doors to the Camaro were thrust open and both of its occupants jumped. How long had they been waiting for Gansey and Blue, Adam wondered. How long had they just spent staring at each other? Time seemed to have gotten lost in Ronan’s eyes.

“All right,” Gansey said, and his voice sounded too cheerful, too _normal_ for this charged environment, “we’ll drop off Jane first, and then Adam. Sound good?” No, that did not sound good. In fact, Adam wanted to ask to get out of this car right this second. He wasn’t sure if he could handle such a long trip so close to Ronan. Close enough to touch, if he dared. Adam agreed anyways.

Blue and Gansey conversed on the way to her house, but Adam was too busy drowning in his thoughts to pay them much mind. A few pieces of the discussion made it far enough into his mind to be processed, but not very deeply: Gansey saying, frustration and want filling his voice, “He has to be _somewhere;”_ Blue saying, logical as always, “There’s just no way he was in that cave;” Ronan, the strongest point of all, interjecting, “It is too fucking late at night to be having this argument again.”

After what seemed like eons to Adam as his thoughts swirled in familiar patterns, Gansey pulled up to Blue’s house and Blue got out. Adam had been expecting at least a little bit of relief at this point as Ronan climbed into the front seat, but Ronan remained where he was. Adam couldn’t bring himself to admit his internal strife to the others by taking front seat in his place.

The ride to Adam’s tiny apartment was much more silent, as Adam was still lost in the whirlpool of his mind, and Ronan was being Ronan, and Gansey had just dropped off his most promising conversation partner. Gansey may have attempted to start a conversation with Adam once or twice, but Adam was staring at the window and trying to see into his soul and didn’t hear him.

Gansey parked outside of the church, and they were still silent as Adam climbed out of the car. But then, to his surprise, Ronan climbed out as well. Adam knew better than turn his look of surprise on Ronan this time; he looked at Gansey instead. Gansey shrugged. His expression said: _I’m sorry,_ and _We should know better than to try to predict what Ronan will do._

Adam gave Gansey a look back. This look very clearly did not convey that Ronan’s unpredictability was one of Adam’s favorite things about him. What it did say was: _It’s fine. I can deal with him._ Adam was pretty sure that everything about this look was a lie.

Adam exchanged farewells with Gansey and headed up to his apartment. Ronan trailed silently behind him. Adam was beginning to wonder if Ronan planned to be his silent shadow for the night when he closed the door to his apartment and Ronan sprang into action. Adam suddenly wondered if his own apartment had become a trap.

“All right, Parrish, what the fuck’s up with you tonight?” Ronan demanded.

“What do you mean?” Adam asked, feigning innocence as best he could. It only served to make Ronan angrier.

“You know what I mean,” Ronan replied with a warning in his voice: _Don’t lie to me._ Adam wasn’t sure that the truth would be a good idea, either. “You’ve been acting weird all night. I want to know what’s with you.”

“Have I?” Adam asked, surprised. Was it really just tonight? He felt as if he’d been weird for a long time. If it taken so long for Ronan to notice… well, maybe Ronan wasn’t paying as much attention to him as he’d thought.

Ronan let out a long breath. “For fuck’s sake, yes! And I don’t mean just Cabeswater-weird; I mean like really extra-weird, even for you.”

“Hmm,” Adam wondered. Perhaps he had been taking a slightly different approach to not paying attention to Ronan tonight. Could it really make such a difference?

“You see?” Ronan demanded. “That’s Cabeswater-weird! That’s normal-weird! But tonight you’ve been weird beyond that! Like, too-quiet-weird.”

“No one else seemed to notice,” Adam pointed out. This felt like a dangerous point to make, but it was true, and it was something he had to say.

Ronan laughed, and it was not a humorous sound. “You mean Gansey and Blue? Man, they’re so busy with their own problems. They just see you being weird and they don’t stop and wonder what _kind_ of weird you’re being.” This also sounded like a dangerous statement, but it was also true, and Adam was glad that Ronan had said it.

“But you do?” Adam asked, and it was a dangerous question.

“Yeah,” Ronan said, his voice dropping as quickly as his gaze. “Yeah, I do.” He looked up again. “Gansey and Blue are just hoping you’ll go back to the way you were before. I’ve… accepted the way you are now, so it’s a little easier to notice when you’re being extra weird.” His voice rose again. “Which you _are._ Are you going to fucking tell me why?”

Adam just shook his head. His body felt frozen with Ronan’s words. His heart couldn’t supply blood fast enough to his brain for it to process what Ronan had said. Ronan had just basically confessed his feelings, hadn’t he? He had at least _almost_ confessed his feelings.

Ronan sighed. He stepped a little bit closer. Adam stepped a little bit farther; he couldn’t let himself be so close to Ronan. Ronan frowned and looked at Adam like he was a puzzle he was _this close_ to solving. He took another step forward. And another. Adam scrambled back and hit his head on the low ceiling.

Adam swore and tilted his head down, putting his hand on top of the injury, though he knew from experience that this didn’t really make the pain better. There was a flash of movement at his side, and suddenly Ronan’s fingers were on top of his on the back of his head.

Adam looked up at Ronan, too close to his face. Adam’s breath caught in his throat, and he could just barely stop himself from doing something that would be bad for both of them.

“Does it hurt?” Ronan asked. His voice was far too quiet. Adam wasn’t sure he could respond in his current state. Every bit of him was aware of how close he was to Ronan, and every bit wanted to be closer. Especially his lips.

After a pause that was probably too long, Adam cleared his throat. “Um, not too much. I do it all the time,” he said. His voice was far too loud for the lack of space between them, but it had to be that way. If he spoke any quieter, he would be far too close to doing something dangerous.

Ronan dropped his hand from Adam’s and stepped back, just a little. Adam lowered his hand as well. Adam’s eyes were looking at the floor; Ronan’s eyes were looking at Adam’s. “Do you want me to go?” Ronan asked. Ronan rarely left before he got what he wanted, but perhaps he recognized that Adam wasn’t really in a state that was favorable towards communication.

Adam lifted his eyes and stared at Ronan. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say. _Do I want him to leave?_ he asked himself. Part of him said immediately, _hell, yes._ This was the part of him that was rational, the part of him that knew he couldn’t give in to temptation. But, at the same time, a much larger part of him was screaming, _God, no._

Adam looked at Ronan for a long time, and then he shook his head before he could talk himself out of it. He was trying not to hurt Ronan, but would it hurt him more to tell him to leave, or to let him stay?

Ronan let out a sigh. It was almost like relief, but not quite. Adam wasn’t sure what it was. “Adam,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. Adam could hear it all in that one word. He tried to pretend he couldn’t. If Ronan knew that he knew, Ronan would want a response, and Adam wasn’t sure that he had one. He didn’t think that he could lie to Ronan, but he didn’t think that he should tell him the truth, either.

“What?” Adam asked after a minute that seemed to drag on for hours.

Ronan sighed again, and this time the emotion behind it was clearly irritation and impatience. “You know what,” Ronan told him, and Adam knew that he couldn’t deny it.

Adam blinked. Adam swallowed. Adam did everything he could to delay his response. He needed some time to figure out what it was going to be. Finally, he couldn’t hold himself off any longer, and he said the truth: “I don’t know."

Ronan ran a hand over his head as he pondered Adam’s response. “How do you not know?” he asked.

Adam shrugged. This was it: was he going to tell Ronan everything? He thought that maybe he was. “Cabeswater,” he whispered, voicing the concern that he had been trying not to think about.

“Cabeswater?” Ronan repeated incredulously. “What _about_ Cabeswater?”

“I… I didn’t feel this way before… before Cabeswater,” Adam confessed.

Ronan pushed his hand across his forehead. “You didn’t feel this way before Cabeswater,” he repeated. It would have irritated Adam that Ronan was just repeating his words if it weren’t for the fact that even he wasn’t sure how to process that statement, although he’d been living with it in the back of his mind for months.

“What if… what if it’s not real? What if I don’t really like you that way?” Adam asked, his doubts spilling out of him now that he was letting them. “What if I wake up in six months and I don’t feel this way anymore? What if… what if I break your heart?” Adam’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

Ronan squeezed his eyes shut. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting such a complex situation. It should have been a yes, or a no, and that would have been that. But Adam couldn’t give him that. Ronan kept his eyes closed for a long time, his head tilted to the ceiling. Adam wondered if it had been the right thing to tell him the truth.

Then, suddenly, Ronan threw his eyes open. “Okay, look,” he said, “even if it _is_ because of Cabeswater, you aren’t going to _stop_ being part of Cabeswater any time soon, right? So it isn’t going to go away."

Adam just shook his head. “How can you even imagine trying this without being absolutely certain that it’s real? How can you deal with the _doubt?”_ But they were rhetorical questions, because Adam knew how. Because Adam suddenly recognized that emotion behind Ronan’s earlier sigh: hope.

“Well,” Ronan said with a hint of desperation, “have you asked?”

Adam looked at Ronan like it was the most ridiculous thing ever. Of course he hadn’t asked! Why would he ask? _What_ would he ask?

“Don’t fucking look at me like that,” Ronan demanded. “You want to know if it’s real, fucking ask the trees!” Ronan headed for the door. It took Adam a second to realize he was meant to follow.

“Right now?” he asked, although it was clear that, yes, Ronan did mean right now.

Ronan looked at Adam impatiently. “Yes, right fucking now. Why not now? It’s always safe for us."

Adam swallowed nervously and followed Ronan out to the tri-colored car. Perhaps the reason that he hadn’t asked was that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. He wasn’t sure what he wanted the answer to be, and he wasn’t sure what he would do once he knew it.

Adam drove, because it was his car, and because Ronan didn’t ask to drive. The only sound in the car was the engine and Ronan’s fingers drumming against the dashboard restlessly. Adam wasn’t sure if he wanted to reach over and still Ronan’s hands, or if he wanted to join him in nervous harmony.

Adam parked the car at the familiar spot and they climbed out slowly. Adam didn’t point out that they probably could have asked from the apartment, now that it occurred to him. They had both needed the drive to prepare for this. Adam still wasn’t sure if he was ready. But there was no turning back now.

Ronan walked ahead of Adam into Cabeswater. Adam suddenly wondered if they would run into Ronan’s mother while they were here. Aurora was living in Cabeswater, as it was the only place she was awake, but it wasn’t as if she was constantly hovering; Cabeswater was a pretty big forest. Adam wondered if she knew when they were there, and when they needed to be alone.

Ronan stopped in a small clearing in the forest. Suddenly, the sun began to peek above the horizon, giving them a little more light. Adam wasn’t sure if Cabeswater had brought them forward to the sunrise, or back to the sunset; he wasn’t sure if it mattered, in any case. It was almost romantic, Adam thought as Ronan looked back at him with a triumphant grin.

Adam took the last few steps to stand beside Ronan. They were close enough that they could hold hands if they wanted to. They did not hold hands.

Adam stared at the trees, unsure of how to start. Ronan elbowed him, and the resulting spark through his nerves was enough to allow him to force out a greeting in Latin. The trees murmured in response. “Um,” Adam said, struggling to come up with the words to ask his question. Latin wasn’t _easy_ for Adam, but it usually wasn’t this hard, either.

After listening to him struggle for what felt like an hour, Ronan sighed and took over. Ronan’s Latin was effortless and elegant, and far beyond Adam’s level of comprehension, at least at the moment. The trees responded, and it was a little easier for Adam to understand them than Ronan. _It was always there,_ the trees told them. _You just didn’t realize it._

Adam felt a thrill go through him. He had to admit that he noticed a lot more now that he was linked to Cabeswater. Perhaps the trees had given him the power to see his own emotions as well. Maybe these feelings _had_ been there all along, just beneath Adam’s conscious thoughts.

Adam was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost didn’t realize that Ronan had asked something else. Adam didn’t catch enough of it to decipher the question, but he heard the response: _It’s meant to be._

Ronan grinned at Adam, and Adam couldn’t help but grin back. “What did you ask them?” Adam asked.

Ronan’s smile was mischievous and happy. “I asked them why.” He didn’t need to clarify; Adam knew what he meant: why had Cabeswater chosen to reveal Adam’s emotions to him? Why did Cabeswater care what happened between them?

Adam’s smile matched Ronan’s. He was so relieved to know that his emotions were truly his own. Adam pulled Ronan to him and kissed him. It was a long kiss – full of joy and promise and _rightness._

When they finally pulled apart, Adam became aware of the sound around them. The trees were making a noise that sounded suspiciously like cheering. Ronan laughed wildly. “Do you want to continue this somewhere a little more… private?” he asked.

Adam looked at him for a moment with a grin in his eyes. “God, yes.”


End file.
